Buzz Out Loud 689: Mousetronauts

Please, someone, make a Mousetronauts show. We're begging you. In other news, cell phones on airplanes appear to be coming to European airspace near you. Comcast and Time Warner are lining up behind WiMax, and South Park is coming online -- for free!
Listen now: Download today's podcast

As you may have heard, our shipping system was unexpectedly down for most of Monday. We should have shipped you a DVD but were unable to.
Your DVD was shipped today, Tuesday, March 25th, instead.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. We will issue a 5% credit to your account in the next few days. You don’t need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.

Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1
(888) 638-3549.

-The Netflix Team

Zoe

*************************

Bell crimps P2P file-sharing during peak hours

Bell Canada is slowing down access on its Sympatico internet servers for users who file share during prime time, so that other users will not be overly delayed

Hey Buzz Crew,
You guys discussed the possibility of using cars and busses to create a mesh network in an urban environment, but do you know what would even work better? People. Implant everybody in major cities with a wireless repeater and voila! Instant network. It would be so much better than using cars because it would spread out vertically too. As we all learned in The Matrix, humans are excellent power sources and could surely power a small wifi hub. This is the solution to municipal wifi.

Erik the MBA student from Tulsa

***************************

Well actually, fiber is analog

Hi JaMoTo!

In Episode 686 (with Veronica!) Tom said "I think Verizon doesn't have an analog version because it's FIOS, it's over fiber."

Veronica responded, "It's digital right?"

Well, Actually: fiber simply carries a light signal which may be either digital or analog. FIOS uses a Passive Optical Network (PON) with three different colored lasers. One carries internet traffic downstream, one carries internet traffic upstream and one carries the television signal. At the customer's home, a termination box separates the colors using filters. The TV signal (which is at Radio Frequencies) is simply amplified and dropped onto a coaxial cable to handle the last 50 feet to the television. Thus, it can work without a set-top box on a cable-ready TV. The individual channels can be analog, digital or a mix of the two just like over the air.

In fact, Comcast (my provider) has been using a Hybrid Fiber-Coax (HFC) network for more than a decade. It uses coax cable within each neighborhood and then converts to fiber for the longer-haul back to the cable headend. The big difference in FIOS versus cable is in its handing of internet and telephone. TV is pretty much the same except that FIOS converts from coax to fiber at the home where Comcast converts at the neighborhood.

So... presumably this means that Verizon does indeed intend to shut down existing analog channels (which they do carry). I'm not sure how the FCC requirement to extend analog transmissions will affect Verizon because they aren't a traditional cable company. Even if it does affect them my understanding is that the requirement only applies to local channels. Also, even though PON networks work with analog cable-ready TVs, I'll bet that the subscribers with this configuration are a tiny minority.